When the Cheshire emerges...

Being of Greek heritage, I celebrate Easter in the Orthodox tradition and follow the old calendar, which this year fell a year behind the Christian Easter. As such, I've done the church rounds this past week.

For those who have never been in a Greek Orthodox church, it's adorned with icons of the saints considered important in the history of the faith.

There's a lot of chandeliers, the women (traditionally) sit on the left and the men on the right, and most wear black.

I thought I would put up a couple of photos I originally took for the purpose of showing my mum (who wasn't around with me) to show those of you who haven't seen the inside of one of our churches!

I went on Palm Sunday to mark the beginning of the week, which also signified the start of my fast off meat as I do for Easter every year. I thought the palms we were given by the priest were beautiful.

Good Friday is the prettiest you will ever see a Greek church though, with a particular centrepiece adorned with flowers to mark the mourning.



Dubbo's Our Lady of Myrtidiotissa

We call Jesus' coffin the epitafio, which is carried around the block outside during the service. In Dubbo's case it just goes around the outside of the church itself because there's room, and it was lovely.

Last night I attended the midnight mass when Jesus was said to rise and stayed on after the service to enjoy some soup as is tradition. Met some people in the community and also tried magiritsa for the first time. I stupidly didn't mark this occasion with a photo but I should've. It's a soup with the liver, lungs, heart and intestines of a young lamb.

A photo I found so you get the idea.


I managed to eat about half a bowl.

***

Being by myself celebrating, I bought my Sunday lunch from a nice pub as reward for the week. Angus Sirloin steak. Yum. Goodness me I love meat.

Χριστός Ανέστη!